Mystery things do not stop. Now I succeeded when flashing the original BIOS with the patched version as one can see by flashrom's output:
flashrom v0.9.1-r845 (patched) No coreboot table found. Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK. This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI. Calibrating delay loop... OK. Found chip "SST SST25VF016B" (2048 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000. === This flash part has status UNTESTED for operations: ERASE Please email a report to flashrom@flashrom.org if any of the above operations work correctly for you with this flash part. Please include the flashrom output with the additional -V option for all operations you tested (-V, -rV, -wV, -EV), and mention which mainboard or programmer you tested. Thanks for your help! === Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks. Writing flash chip... Erasing flash before programming... done. COMPLETE. Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
A verification by reading the BIOS (via flashrom -r <file>) and comparing it with the original bios (via diff) shows the NO difference.
For now I think we can say good night. But I would be very pleased if we fix the problem tomorrow. The original job to flash a new bios isn't done up to now ...
Best,
Parallix
On 09.01.2010 23:04, Parallix wrote:
Mystery things do not stop. Now I succeeded when flashing the original BIOS with the patched version as one can see by flashrom's output:
Ha!
flashrom v0.9.1-r845 (patched) No coreboot table found. Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK. This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI. Calibrating delay loop... OK. Found chip "SST SST25VF016B" (2048 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000. Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks. Writing flash chip... Erasing flash before programming... done. COMPLETE. Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
A verification by reading the BIOS (via flashrom -r <file>) and comparing it with the original bios (via diff) shows the NO difference.
Great.
For now I think we can say good night.
Good night indeed.
But I would be very pleased if we fix the problem tomorrow. The original job to flash a new bios isn't done up to now ...
It will take our board enable specialists a while to create a board enable for you, so don't expect anything tomorrow. If you know where to find a service manual for your laptop or if you have any high-resolution photos of your mainboard, creating that board enable will be easier for us. We need to find out which SuperIO or EC (Embedded Controller) your board is using. superiotool unfortunately didn't find anything.
In general, we recommend people to use the vendor flashing tools on laptops because the risk is much higher than on desktops where you can recover quite easily.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Good morning ;-)
Am Samstag, 9. Januar 2010 23:26:10 schrieben Sie:
On 09.01.2010 23:04, Parallix wrote:
Mystery things do not stop. Now I succeeded when flashing the original BIOS with the patched version as one can see by flashrom's output:
Ha!
flashrom v0.9.1-r845 (patched) No coreboot table found. Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK. This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI. Calibrating delay loop... OK. Found chip "SST SST25VF016B" (2048 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000. Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks. Writing flash chip... Erasing flash before programming... done. COMPLETE. Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
A verification by reading the BIOS (via flashrom -r <file>) and comparing it with the original bios (via diff) shows the NO difference.
Great.
In fact!
For now I think we can say good night.
Good night indeed.
But I would be very pleased if we fix the problem tomorrow. The original job to flash a new bios isn't done up to now ...
It will take our board enable specialists a while to create a board enable for you, so don't expect anything tomorrow. If you know where to find a service manual for your laptop or if you have any high-resolution photos of your mainboard, creating that board enable will be easier for us. We need to find out which SuperIO or EC (Embedded Controller) your board is using. superiotool unfortunately didn't find anything.
I will do my very best.
In general, we recommend people to use the vendor flashing tools on laptops because the risk is much higher than on desktops where you can recover quite easily.
The bad thing is that vendors like Compaq respectively HP and some others, in particular Sony, do not provide vendor flashing tools which can be used without putting an unwanted operating system on the machine.
In former times it was usual that one was able to flash a BIOS after booting from a DOS boot floppy and everything was running quite well. Now one needs a gra- phical user interface to be able to click on the "OK" button just to proceed a BIOS flash. This brings perversion to a climax, doesn't it? And where do we want be be tomorrow?
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Best,
Parallix
Am Sonntag, den 10.01.2010, 00:52 +0100 schrieb Parallix:
The bad thing is that vendors like Compaq respectively HP and some others, in particular Sony, do not provide vendor flashing tools which can be used without putting an unwanted operating system on the machine.
Download the FreeDOS flash updater, extract it with cabextract, burn the ISO file to CD. Boot from CD and update your flash.
Having you test flashrom stuff would still be nice.
Regards, Michael Karcher
Hi Michael,
Am Sonntag, 10. Januar 2010 01:54:12 schrieben Sie:
Am Sonntag, den 10.01.2010, 00:52 +0100 schrieb Parallix:
The bad thing is that vendors like Compaq respectively HP and some others, in particular Sony, do not provide vendor flashing tools which can be used without putting an unwanted operating system on the machine.
Download the FreeD
OS flash updater,
I don't know the "FreeDOS flash updater". Can you provide a link to this applica- tion. My favorite internet search engine delivers only a link under FreeDOS to http://www.linuxinsight.com/how-to-flash-motherboard-bios-from-linux-no-dos-...
extract it with cabextract,
cabextract is also available under Linux
burn the ISO file to CD. Boot from CD and update your flash.
Having you test flashrom stuff would still be nice.
what do you want to have?
Best,
Parallix
Am Sonntag, den 10.01.2010, 09:32 +0100 schrieb Parallix:
Download the FreeDOS flash updater,
I don't know the "FreeDOS flash updater".
HP download page for the HP Compaq 615. It won't work if there somewhere is "=de" in the URL, change that to "=en".
extract it with cabextract,
cabextract is also available under Linux
That's the one I was referring to.
Having you test flashrom stuff would still be nice.
what do you want to have?
Probably we are going to find out how to update your flash completely (i.e. remove the boot block protection), and we need someone to test that.
Regards, Michael Karcher
Am Sonntag, 10. Januar 2010 13:18:24 schrieb Michael Karcher:
Am Sonntag, den 10.01.2010, 09:32 +0100 schrieb Parallix:
Download the FreeDOS flash updater,
I don't know the "FreeDOS flash updater".
HP download page for the HP Compaq 615. It won't work if there somewhere is "=de" in the URL, change that to "=en".
The only one I found is on http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&a... marked to be "ROMPaq for HP Notebook System BIOS (68GVV) – FreeDOS Bootable Media" with BIOS revision "F.06" dated 3 Aug 2009 and thus much older the BIOS which is already on the laptop.
I'll check if this ROMPaq contains a generic updater which is only bundled with an old BIOS revision. If so, I would kindly advise HP to put this updater separate from any BIOS revision on their web page.
extract it with cabextract,
cabextract is also available under Linux
That's the one I was referring to.
OK, thanks.
Having you test flashrom stuff would still be nice.
what do you want to have?
Probably we are going to find out how to update your flash completely (i.e. remove the boot block protection), and we need someone to test that.
I can perform the tests if there is a not so bad chance to keep the laptop alive.
Regards, Michael Karcher
Best,
Parallix
Michael Karcher wrote:
Download the FreeDOS flash updater, extract it with cabextract, burn the ISO file to CD. Boot from CD and update your flash.
With the vendor tool "ROMPaq for HP Notebook System BIOS (68GVV) – FreeDOS Bootable Media" one is only able to DOWNGRADE the HP Compaq 615 to a BIOS revision "F.06" dated 3 Aug 2009 which is much older than the version which is already on the laptop (F.0B dated 29. Oct. 2009). The version expected to fix some laptop bugs is F.0C dated 23. Nov 2009.
Thus, the problem to have a working flasher to flash the most recent HP Compaq 615 BIOS using Linux or DOS still exists.
Best,
Parallix
Am Sonntag, den 10.01.2010, 21:53 +0100 schrieb Parallix:
With the vendor tool "ROMPaq for HP Notebook System BIOS (68GVV) – FreeDOS Bootable Media" one is only able to DOWNGRADE the HP Compaq 615 to a BIOS revision "F.06" dated 3 Aug 2009 which is much older than the version which is already on the laptop (F.0B dated 29. Oct. 2009). The version expected to fix some laptop bugs is F.0C dated 23. Nov 2009.
You can exchange the 68GVV.BIN by a new BIOS for your system, if you know how to rebuild such a bootable DOS CD. Or you just make a bootable DOS USB stick (there should be enough howtos around) and copy eRompaq.exe and 68GVV.BIN to that disk. It is important to name the BIOS file 68GVV, because the name of the file does not show the version of the BIOS, but the system it is intended for.
I'm still checking your system for flashrom usability - at least I know now how to dissect EFI BIOSses, and find the runtime BIOS within.
Regards, Michael Karcher
Am Montag, den 11.01.2010, 13:54 +0100 schrieb Michael Karcher:
I'm still checking your system for flashrom usability - at least I know now how to dissect EFI BIOSses, and find the runtime BIOS within.
The vendor flash tool uses a BIOS interface that is implemented on EFI (it looks like they use SMM for that) to update the flash chip. This BIOS flash interface *ignores* any writes to 140000-14FFFF and 1C0000-1FFFFF. This does not mean *rejecting* the writes, but silently doing nothing even and returning success. The former area seems to be some BIOS data stuff, the latter is the boot block.
The contents of the boot block (and 256 extra bytes, probably CMOS initialization values) are also stored in a firmware volume at 190000, and I suppose the BIOS updates the main boot block during the next reboot.
Nevertheless, there is board enable code in the EFI code - it clears bit 6 (mask 0x40) at index 0x53 on ports 0xcd6/0xcd7. That *might* make it possible to change the block protection. Most data in the BIOS is is organized in firmware volumes. There are two areas falling out. The "logo" area at 008000 to 00FFFF and a second area at 1C0000-1CFFFF. This second area contains data that - has no strings except for "11/10/06" and "07/14/09 KVV10 Copyright 2003 - 2008 by Hewlett-Packard Company." - is definitely not compressed - does not contain x86 code
I suspect that this is EC code, and it might brick the hardware if the block at 1C0000 to 1CFFFF is erased without taking special precautions that maybe can *only* be taken by the system BIOS during reboot. While one might try to test whether it is possible to remove the locking of the write protection using the register bit above, one should not try to remove the write protection itself and set the locking bit directly after having tested that the write protection lock status bit (BPL, bit 7 in the status register) is clear. We *explicitly* advise against removing write protection and clearing the block at 1C0000 in a running system, even if that is possible with the bit mentioned above!
Regards, Michael Karcher
-
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger -
Michael Karcher -
Parallix